


Helen Cho

by kitty_pryde_bi_pride



Series: Umbrella Academy Vignettes [6]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty_pryde_bi_pride/pseuds/kitty_pryde_bi_pride
Summary: Helen Cho had never received handouts, and it angered her when others expected them.
Series: Umbrella Academy Vignettes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876861
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Helen Cho

Helen Cho had never received handouts, and it angered her when others expected them.

She hadn’t grown up with a lot – better off than a lot of people, she knows that, but little enough that she understood what it meant to be hungry – and she’d fought for every little thing she had.

As soon as she turned fourteen and became eligible on the job market, Helen goes out, working after-school every day she could and staying up for late nights to do hours of homework. It’s exhausting but necessary to help pay her family’s bills, and she’s willing to do it- she is going to fight for her place in the world.

Her sophomore year in high school she takes an obligatory music class – beginner’s orchestra – and it changes her life.

She gets a used school violin and it’s terrible, practically screeches every time she plays, but her dad seems to notice that she becomes a little brighter, a little more excited whenever she talks about her music, and he encourages her. She never would’ve made it as far as she did without that initial support.

It only takes a few months of extra shifts, just through the end of the school year, to make enough money to afford one of her own. It still isn’t great, but it’s a real step up from the school’s loaner instrument.

And then, on top of her intense homework demands and long work hours, she begins practicing each night- she knows she isn’t good yet, but her dad always stops by her room to tell her she sounded amazing.

Helen busts her ass to put herself through college to get some real training on the violin, fights hard to master her scales and runs and overtures until they seem effortless, and she really becomes amazing, just like her dad always said. 

Then he gets sick. 

Cancer, and he’s dead within months- she knew it wasn’t good when the prognosis was terminal from the start, but she had still hoped.

But hope had never done anything for her. Hope didn’t pay the bills, or give her the time to make friends and build some social skills, or let her rest. Why would it save her father?

She keeps grinding, though- violin was what she loved, and she had both the talent and the hard work to become amazing.

Trying out for a nice orchestra in their city helped her. It was prestigious, and it felt amazing to make first chair- Helen knows her father would’ve been proud.

But with success like that comes enemies, and she hears what people said about her. They call her cold and a cheat, say that she couldn’t be as good as everyone said. She knows it’s not true, but rumors like that are insidious and so she remains friendless.

There are things she could say to shut all that down, but she doubts anyone would really listen. 

And then a nameless third chair in the same orchestra, someone just as awkward and shy as she is, approaches her in the bathroom and says she wants to be just as good as Helen. And-and that sometimes, she really wants to reach out to someone, let them in, but she doesn’t think she knows how to do that anymore. Helen watches this girl – Vanya Hargreeves, she thinks she said, the name rings a bell of childhood fame and power, being chosen as a child by a billionaire and growing up in a mansion – get upset, teary eyed, and it all feels terribly familiar to witness.

But people – those who grew up with the silver spoon in their mouth, who had been afforded every single opportunity that she’d never ever have the chance for – people like that don’t deserve to know who she was, and she was never going to let them in.

She doesn't owe this girl anything.

And it should never be said that she didn’t fight and scrabble for every single thing that she had.

**Author's Note:**

> another day, another chapter!
> 
> also-this whole thing is not at all based in canon, in case you were wondering, because there's like no information about helen at all
> 
> feel free to drop a kudos/comment if you like it or have feedback
> 
> have a good one!


End file.
